Regional development

OECD project on subnational indicators for Tunisia

Supporting the Government of Tunisia in the development of a system of internationally comparable indicators at the subnational level

Tunisia’s new constitution, adopted in 2014, places regional development as one of the government’s main priorities, and gives local authorities a key role in economic and social planning and development. Five years after the revolution, significant regional disparities persist; the Strategic Development Plan 2016-2020 seeks to reduce them for the duration. The project is part of a broader initiative on Supporting the design and implementation of economic and social reforms for inclusive growth in Tunisia through capacity building in statistics, monitoring and evaluation, supported by the Middle East and North Africa Transition Fund. It is developed in collaboration with the Ministry of Development, Investment and International Co-operation of the Government of Tunisia.

Objective of the project

This project aims to improve the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of regional development policies in Tunisia through a strengthened governance of regional statistics. The work will provide a diagnosis of:

the governance of regional statistics

data gaps in the context of a reformed multi-level governance system

capacity needs at the national and the subnational level to carry out new functions in the production and use of regional statistics.

Main outputs of the project

A capacity-building workshop organised and facilitated by the OECD to support the sustainability of Tunisian regional indicator production over time and the use of territorial indicators in policy making. International experiences will be presented to foster knowledge transfer.

A report summarising the results of the diagnosis; this document will be peer reviewed by the OECD Working Party on Territorial Indicators.

Tunisia’s inclusion in the 2018 OECD Regions at a Glance publication

Field studies

The first field study took place on 22-24 March 2017. The OECD participated in the first meeting of the Steering Committee of the project organised by the Ministry of Development, Investment & International Cooperation and interviewed the following key stakeholders of regional statistics in the country.

Tunisian Ministry of Development, Investment and International Co-operation (MDICI)

Statistics Tunisia (INS)

Ministry of Social Affairs

Bureau of Research, Planning and Programming

Ministry of Employment, National Observatory for Employment and Qualifications (ONEQ)

Ministry of Finance

Commission in Support of Decentralisation (Instance d’appui à la decentralisation)

The mission was also an opportunity to finalise the implementation plan with the MDICI and to launch the main activities of the project.

Workshop

The capacity building workshop on the governance of statistics took place on 27 November 2017 in Tunis. It gathered 100 stakeholders and was opened by Mr. Zied Lahdhari, Minister of Development, Investment and International Cooperation.

During his opening remarks, the Minister indicated that this project “...meets the needs of the Tunisian authorities to upgrade the governance of the national statistics system by reinforcing the capacity of Tunisia to produce and use regional indicators”.

Main goals

Compare territorial indicators of Tunisia with those produced in OECD countries

Include Tunisian data in the Regional Outlook

Establish a classification of Tunisian territories TL2 and establish FUA’s.

The Secretariat presented works on inclusive regional development and decentralisation in OECD countries, focusing on the geography of discontent, the need of place-based policies and the need to develop and use regional indicators to implement them. Mr. Duarte Rodrigues (Portugal) presented the work on Regional Policy and Statistics of Portugal.